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lhuff3's review
5.0
The split perspective of this book was done so well. It really allowed for exploration of how the perceptions and perspectives of different people in the same situation can change everything.
charlottesweeney's review
challenging
emotional
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
emmatee's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
lottie1803's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
km_2634's review
3.0
Akorfa and Selasi are cousins who couldn't be more different, but love each other like sisters. Or at least they used to. This is told from both their perspectives from child to adulthood. The reader gets to look into each of their eyes and brains while they recount their lives and the reasons why they grew apart. Unfortunately, both experience a severely traumatic event that makes them not rekindle their relationship, but at the very least come to an understanding.
Wasn't the biggest fan of Akorfa or her mother (terrible human) but I did enjoy hearing from Selasi's POV and can respect a woman who stands by her convictions.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC. I'm giving it 3 stars. Sidenote, the cover is GORGEOUS!
Wasn't the biggest fan of Akorfa or her mother (terrible human) but I did enjoy hearing from Selasi's POV and can respect a woman who stands by her convictions.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC. I'm giving it 3 stars. Sidenote, the cover is GORGEOUS!
abbyreads8's review
5.0
Nightbloom is a powerful novel following two cousins who grow up together in Ghana as best friends and become estranged as their lives start to diverge. When crisis occurs, the two are forced to reckon with the circumstances of their estrangement and the true meaning of their sisterhood.
This is the first of Adzo Medie's books that I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The dual narrations do not take place simultaneously, which confused me at first but later on in the novel I fully understood why the author made this literary choice.
This felt so raw and beautiful, heartbreaking and painful all at the same time, and I look forward to recommending this story to my friends.
Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This is the first of Adzo Medie's books that I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The dual narrations do not take place simultaneously, which confused me at first but later on in the novel I fully understood why the author made this literary choice.
This felt so raw and beautiful, heartbreaking and painful all at the same time, and I look forward to recommending this story to my friends.
Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
blanchreads's review
4.0
Rating 3.5
I loved His Only Wife and I’m was excited when this came out, though I liked this but I enjoyed His Only Wife better.
Selasi and Akorfa grew up together in Ghana. They were more than cousins, they have opposite personality but inseparable and would do anything for each other, share secrets and dreams. Selasi changed overtime, became quiet, aloof and failing school. While Akorfa was doing well in her school, accepted and liked by her peers, got accepted at American University to become a doctor. The cousins went separate ways and they created their own path and their own life. When a family crisis brought them back together, things started to unravel and they discovered some devastating truths that questions their roles in letting things happen and their estrangement.
The story is told in three parts - the story from Akorfa’s view, the story from Selasi’s view and then both views. I don’t have an issue with this format, except when it starts with either Akorfa and Selasi, the story seems to repeat from the start. But I like that we see how they react or treat a same situation differently. I don’t like Akorfa’s character, don’t sympathize with her, though I feel that her personality is largely brought about by her mother, which is another unlikable character. I prefer Selali’s character. Between the two, hers has more depth and you can feel her struggles all through the story. There’s one part on Selasi’s story that I didn’t like which I think is a little bit unnecessary. I would rather see her more of her growing up story.
Although there are slow parts in the story but overall I like it. I like the author’s writing, I like the story on family dynamics and class in Ghana. How one sees a situation while the other sees differently, how sometime our memory fails us or we seem to forget that things happened.
I loved His Only Wife and I’m was excited when this came out, though I liked this but I enjoyed His Only Wife better.
Selasi and Akorfa grew up together in Ghana. They were more than cousins, they have opposite personality but inseparable and would do anything for each other, share secrets and dreams. Selasi changed overtime, became quiet, aloof and failing school. While Akorfa was doing well in her school, accepted and liked by her peers, got accepted at American University to become a doctor. The cousins went separate ways and they created their own path and their own life. When a family crisis brought them back together, things started to unravel and they discovered some devastating truths that questions their roles in letting things happen and their estrangement.
The story is told in three parts - the story from Akorfa’s view, the story from Selasi’s view and then both views. I don’t have an issue with this format, except when it starts with either Akorfa and Selasi, the story seems to repeat from the start. But I like that we see how they react or treat a same situation differently. I don’t like Akorfa’s character, don’t sympathize with her, though I feel that her personality is largely brought about by her mother, which is another unlikable character. I prefer Selali’s character. Between the two, hers has more depth and you can feel her struggles all through the story. There’s one part on Selasi’s story that I didn’t like which I think is a little bit unnecessary. I would rather see her more of her growing up story.
Although there are slow parts in the story but overall I like it. I like the author’s writing, I like the story on family dynamics and class in Ghana. How one sees a situation while the other sees differently, how sometime our memory fails us or we seem to forget that things happened.
susieliston's review
2.0
I was doing fine with the first perspective, Akorfa, I don't think I've ever read a book set in Ghana before, and I found the clash of familiar/unfamiliar interesting. Selasi comes off as an ungrateful brat, so I was curious to see the story from her perspective. But. When authors do this, (see "Fingersmith", they need to just hit on highlights on the repeat, don't start the whole thing over in detail because that becomes so tedious, we've heard all this, the only difference is that this time Akorfa is the pain in the butt instead of Selasi. The main problem though, I thought, was that the story skips so much time it seemed moot to me whether they reunited, as they had been out of each other's lives for so long. Like when I told Robert Chavez at a high school reunion that he was very mean to me in 7th grade, he looked at me like I was crazy because apparently he had had a crush on me. (Which is no doubt why he was so mean, that's your first clue that you will never Understand Men, when you cry to your mother that so and so is being horrible and she says, "Oh don't worry, that means he LIKES you." What???) So I lost interest and sort of faded away with this, skimming to the end.
brownflopsy's review against another edition
5.0
5.0
Cousins Akorfa and Selasi grew up in the same small town in Ghana. With mothers who were best friends, it was almost inevitable that they would become inseparable, but a friendship that seemed unbreakable was eventually torn asunder by difficult family circumstances.
As the years go by, the two women follow separate paths in marriage, motherhood, and their careers - Akorfa in international development in the USA, and Selasi as a successful restaurant owner in Accra. Their lives seem as far apart as the miles that divide them, but when Akorfa's father dies, she returns home to Ghana and unexpectedly bumps into Selasi. It is a meeting that provokes a bitter outburst of recriminations, and forces them to confront the secrets that bind them.
Nightbloom is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that has quite rightly earned its place among the longlisted titles of this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. The story unfurls in a very clever way, starting with Akorfa's narrative in the first half of the book, and then flipping perspective to Selasi's point of view for the second half. This deliberately leads you down a path of looking at their relationship in a particular way, before everything gets tipped on its head in a 'there are two sides to every story' kind of way.
Medie's writing is a delight, and she examines a spectacular array of themes around different facets of power, responsibility, prejudice, systemic racism, corruption, and culture shock through the stories of these two women, via intelligent plotlines far too complex to delve into in a short review - especially given their geographical locations in societies that are both broken in a number of profound ways.
But what really pulls you into this novel, and keeps you turning the pages all the way to surprise conclusion, is how Medie writes about the far more intimate details of the shifting relationship between the two women. She beautifully explores how the tangled threads of close female friendship can be divided by complicated family dynamics and the rawness of perceived slights, and then bound tightly back together by shared experiences of trauma.
This is a fascinating book, full of cultural detail about Ghana. Medie immerses you completely in the lives of each of these women in turn and leaves you to make up your own mind about the rights and wrongs of their actions and what happened between them, although it is Selasi's astonishing strength of character that shines out for me.
Like any book that addresses weighty issues there are no easy answers when it comes to the shape of the future they face at its conclusion, but I think Medie makes the right choices about where this story goes, and she leaves you with some interesting things to ponder about fighting against pressure to remain silent about abuse and corruption. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As the years go by, the two women follow separate paths in marriage, motherhood, and their careers - Akorfa in international development in the USA, and Selasi as a successful restaurant owner in Accra. Their lives seem as far apart as the miles that divide them, but when Akorfa's father dies, she returns home to Ghana and unexpectedly bumps into Selasi. It is a meeting that provokes a bitter outburst of recriminations, and forces them to confront the secrets that bind them.
Nightbloom is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that has quite rightly earned its place among the longlisted titles of this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. The story unfurls in a very clever way, starting with Akorfa's narrative in the first half of the book, and then flipping perspective to Selasi's point of view for the second half. This deliberately leads you down a path of looking at their relationship in a particular way, before everything gets tipped on its head in a 'there are two sides to every story' kind of way.
Medie's writing is a delight, and she examines a spectacular array of themes around different facets of power, responsibility, prejudice, systemic racism, corruption, and culture shock through the stories of these two women, via intelligent plotlines far too complex to delve into in a short review - especially given their geographical locations in societies that are both broken in a number of profound ways.
But what really pulls you into this novel, and keeps you turning the pages all the way to surprise conclusion, is how Medie writes about the far more intimate details of the shifting relationship between the two women. She beautifully explores how the tangled threads of close female friendship can be divided by complicated family dynamics and the rawness of perceived slights, and then bound tightly back together by shared experiences of trauma.
This is a fascinating book, full of cultural detail about Ghana. Medie immerses you completely in the lives of each of these women in turn and leaves you to make up your own mind about the rights and wrongs of their actions and what happened between them, although it is Selasi's astonishing strength of character that shines out for me.
Like any book that addresses weighty issues there are no easy answers when it comes to the shape of the future they face at its conclusion, but I think Medie makes the right choices about where this story goes, and she leaves you with some interesting things to ponder about fighting against pressure to remain silent about abuse and corruption. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
njokireads's review
5.0
This is the kind of book I love and really enjoy.
I had missed a good book and I knew Peace would not disappoint.
I love a story of things working out for people, especially who's odds looked doomed.
I had missed a good book and I knew Peace would not disappoint.
I love a story of things working out for people, especially who's odds looked doomed.